Administrators with local ties also working the meet.
By Gary R. Blockus
Of The Morning Call
ST. LOUIS, Mo. | With only 10 area qualifiers at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships, the tendency is to look at it as a down year for the Lehigh Valley at nationals.
Not so.
Troy Letters (165) and Jon Trenge (197) of Lehigh are both No. 1 seeds, so the quality is there.
The quality is also there behind the scenes.
Tom Bold, a former wrestler at Lehigh University and Bethlehem Catholic High and now the associate director of athletics at Brown University, is the chair of the NCAA Wrestling Committee.
One of the people he communicates with on a regular basis is Mark Bedics, an Allentown Central Catholic graduate, who is the assistant director of media coordination and championships for the NCAA.
Both men are in St. Louis this week performing their duties to make sure the collegiate wrestling national championships run without a hitch. Bold’s term on the wrestling committee, along with his chair, expires this year. Bedics started with the NCAA in 1998 and has moved up the ladder in terms of responsibilities.
”The NCAA wrestling committee runs the championships,” said Bedics, a 1991 intern in the sports department of The Morning Call. He covered, among other things, the Keystone State Games and American Legion baseball and also did some sidebar work on the Philadelphia Phillies.
”We’re the main liaisons to make sure things run smoothly,” he said. ”We all have our areas of expertise. Mine is in drug-testing and awards presentation. My other responsibilities are overseeing the weigh-ins and skin checks.”
As the chair of the wrestling committee, Bold led talks at the seedings when the bracketing came under question ” things like why Oklahoma State’s Coleman Scott was the ninth seed at 125 when he had already defeated No. 1 seed Sam Hazewinkel of Oklahoma just a few weeks ago.
Bold also has to listen when conferences like the Big 12 complain about the number of qualifiers they are allowed to send to nationals.
”Probably the biggest thing that can be controversial on an annual basis is the distribution of qualifiers,” Bold said. ”The EIWA has done real well and their qualifying numbers have increased each of the past four years.
”The one group not happy with its number of qualifiers and very outspoken about it is the Big 12. Part of the qualifying formula is a cap that no conference may have more than 65 percent of their participants qualify for nationals. The Big 12, with five schools wrestling, is capped at 33, which is set by the rules.”
Bold said that the National Wrestling Coaches Association, led by Mike Moyer and former Liberty wrestler Pat Tocci, is trying to lead the way for a formula adjustment that would have to be formally submitted to the NCAA Championship Competition Cabinet for ultimate approval.
Oddly enough, Bold and Bedics also work together for the NCAA crew championships, where they are joined by another former area resident, Tina Krah, another of the NCAA’s associate directors of championships.
Krah is an Allentown Central Catholic graduate who played basketball for the Vikettes.
Bedics does not get a break after this weekend. He heads to North Dakota next week for one of four regional tournaments in NCAA Division I men’s ice hockey. He will also handle duties at the ”Frozen Four,” the final four of the hockey tournament.
”Wrestling was always big back home,” Bedics said, ”and you see a lot of people from back home this week. I was reading the local paper here [The St. Louis Post Dispatch] and the article on the championships was by Lori Shontz, who was the intern at The Morning Call the year before me. It’s a small world.”
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